Prince of Darkness

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “The doctor cannot say if he’ll recover, claiming it is too early to tell. If you ask me, physicians have found the perfect way to fleece their flock. The patient will live or die. No way they can be wrong, is there? Rather like a soothsayer telling a woman with child that she’ll give birth to either a boy or a girl.” John flung himself down upon his bed. “ ‘Wounds to the head are difficult to heal,’ ” he mimicked. “Fool doctors. We do not need them for the injuries that are easy to heal.”

  “What does he say we should do for Morgan?”

  “He promises to be back on the morrow with more potions and herbs. But for all his fine talk, I’d say Morgan’s best chances rest with the Almighty.” Reaching for his wine cup, John drank, frowned, and drank again. “So if neither of you sent Morgan to the cemetery, why was he there? Why would he have followed me?”

  Justin shook his head. “My lord, those are questions only Morgan can answer.”

  John grimaced. “It seems to me that we have an abundance of questions and a dearth of answers, and I am getting heartily sick of it. As far as we know, there are two men with the answers we need. I doubt that either of you are capable of running the Breton to ground, but you ought to be a match for Arzhela’s hotheaded lover. Find Simon de Lusignan even if you have to search every hovel and tavern and bawdy house in Paris. Find him!”

  Security was increased at Petronilla’s town house, and while she did her best in her role as gracious hostess, she had the bemused expression of a woman aware that she’d utterly lost control of events. John instructed Garnier to take men and prowl the city’s taverns in search of Simon de Lusignan, a task they embraced with commendable enthusiasm. Claudine volunteered to sit by Morgan’s bedside in case he regained consciousness. And Justin and Durand left the house unnoticed and unheralded, pursuing a hunch.

  They walked along the rue de la Draperie, heading for the Grand Pont that linked the Right Bank to the Île de la Cité. This river island, anchored in the middle of the Seine, was the beating heart of Paris, the left ventricle ruled by the Crown, the right ventricle by the Church. In a domain divided between the French king and the Bishop of Paris, here were located both the royal palace and the cathedral of Notre-Dame, only partially completed but already giving promise of the magnificence it would eventually obtain. And here, too, was their destination, the Hôtel-Dieu.

  “I hope you are right, de Quincy. Without some luck, we do not have a prayer in Hell of finding de Lusignan. What’s one fish in a sea of forty thousand?”

  “What made me think of this,” Justin said, “was a similar hunt back in London. You remember Gilbert the Fleming. Well, we were trying to track down his mad dog of a partner, and it finally occurred to me that a man like that was bound to run afoul of the law. So we went to Newgate Gaol and there he was, already facing the hangman’s noose. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the one overlooked.”

  “So you’re guessing that Simon might be in need of a doctor’s care.”

  “All that blood was convincing evidence that someone had been hurt, and we know Simon had bloodstains on his clothing. We also know he did not die on the way to Paris. So why has he not contacted John? Changed his mind? Not likely after riding nigh on two hundred miles.”

  By now they’d reached the Grand Pont. Justin was very impressed, for unlike the old London bridge, this one was of stone, almost twenty feet wide, and so well fortified that the moneychangers and even some goldsmiths chose to operate their businesses from the small stalls and booths lining both sides of the span. It was so thronged with people and carts and horses that it took them a quarter hour to cross over to the island. It was slow going there as well, for the streets were barely as wide as a sword’s length in places. Justin was content to follow Durand’s lead, as he’d boasted there was not one of Paris’s three hundred streets he couldn’t find blindfolded.

  The Hôtel-Dieu was the oldest hospital in Paris, under the supervision of the canons of nearby Notre-Dame. When they were ushered into the great salle, they halted in astonishment, for it was enormous, more than three hundred feet long and filled with beds. Not only was every bed occupied, many held two patients and a few even held three. To the men, it looked as if half of Paris was ailing. Splitting up, they began walking along those crowded aisles, but they searched in vain for a patient with blue eyes, golden beard and hair, and bloody hands.

  They did not give up, though, primarily because they had no other viable leads, and from the Hôtel-Dieu, they returned to the Right Bank and visited the Hôpital des Pauvres de Sainte Opportune, and the Hôpital de la Trinité. Justin even girded himself to check the leper hospital of Saint-Lazare north of the city gates; Durand balked and waited outside the wattle-and-daub fence. After that, they ran out of hospitals.

  Upon their return to Petronilla’s, they found John in a foul mood, Morgan still unconscious, and Garnier’s men in need of sobering up, for Paris seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of taverns to search. The weather had turned on them, too, and a cold, sleeting rain poured from lead-colored clouds, a last gasp of winter that plunged their spirits even lower. But as they shivered around the hearth in John’s bedchamber, they received aid from an utterly unexpected and unlikely source.

  They’d been relating the day’s futile hunt to John, doing their best to shrug off his sarcastic asides, when his beautiful bedmate drifted over to complain of their presence. Neither Justin nor Durand was surprised, for they’d been around Ursula long enough to realize that nothing ever pierced her cocoon of self-absorption. She displayed so little interest in the rest of the world that they’d sometimes wondered why John put up with her; they could only conclude that in bed she must set the sheets on fire.

  John brushed off her objections with the unconcern born of long practice. “If you need a task to occupy yourself, Ursula, you can fetch us wine from the table over there.” Glancing back at the men, he said, “I understand why you think de Lusignan may have been wounded. Why are you so sure, though, that he did not sicken and die on the road to Paris?”

  “Every time we stopped to water the horses, to eat, or to pass the night, we asked about a flaxen-haired stranger riding through in a tearing hurry. Twice we found people who remembered Simon. But we found no one who’d nursed him and no one who’d buried him.”

  “Your wine, my lord,” Ursula said sulkily. When she returned with wine for the other men, she made no attempt to hide her resentment, shoving the cups at them with such calculated carelessness that liquid slopped over the rims and would have splashed their clothes had they not anticipated her bad behavior.

  “Thank you, darling,” Durand said, smiling at Ursula with poisonous politeness, and she looked sorry she’d not overturned the cup in his lap. The men returned to their discussion of Simon de Lusignan’s whereabouts, and John paid Justin a barbed compliment, saying his idea had been a good one, if only it had worked. It was then that Ursula made her contribution to the conversation.

  “If I were hurting,” she said, “I’d not wait till I reached Paris. If I were sick enough to need a doctor’s care, I’d find one as soon as my pain worsened, even if it meant veering off the main road. And if I thought I was being chased, I’d be all the more likely to seek a safe burrow to lick my wounds.”

  They all turned to stare at her, surprised both by the sense of her statement and the realization that she paid more heed to her surroundings—and their conversations—than they’d thought. After a moment to reflect, though, Justin shook his head doubtfully. “We know he did not seek help on the Paris road. And how many hospitals would he be likely to find out in the countryside? Other than the lazar houses, they are always located in towns.”

  John sat upright in his chair, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight. “I can think of one,” he said.

  For more than six centuries, the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés had reigned over the open country south of Paris. Within twenty years, it would be absorbed by the encroaching city suburbs. But on this March
morning, the abbey rose above the meadows in isolated, fortified splendor, a citadel of God keeping the world at bay with the walled, moated defenses of a secular stronghold.

  The church was surrounded by the abbey buildings: two cloisters, the refectory and dormitory, the abbot’s lodgings, the kitchen, the barns and stables, the gaol, a chapel devoted to the Virgin Mary, and a large, well-equipped infirmary. Although not as spacious as the salle at Hôtel-Dieu, it was still a good-sized hall, with both an infirmarian and a physician in residence to treat ailing monks, pilgrims, and travelers. After Durand concocted a plausible story, they were allowed to enter in search of a missing cousin.

  In the middle of the hall, people were clustered around a frail, gaunt figure lying on the bare floor. He was clothed in sackcloth, and ashes had been sprinkled over his emaciated body. At first, Justin thought he was looking at a corpse, but then he saw the feeble rise and fall of the man’s chest, and realized they were witnessing the last hours of an aged brother of the Benedictine order. Such dramatic deathbed abasement was seen as atonement for past sins of pride and arrogance, although Justin wondered how many opportunities an elderly monk could have had for prideful fits of temper.

  About a dozen beds were occupied by patients, several of them shielded by screens. It was in one of the latter that they found Simon de Lusignan, sleeping peacefully and so soundly that he had to be shaken awake. They were tense, anticipating resistance, but he merely gazed up at them, his face impassive, his thoughts masked.

  “Are you going to come with us quietly?” Durand asked, low-voiced. “Or will I have the pleasure of dragging you behind my horse?”

  “Still holding a grudge for that kick in the ballocks, are you?” With an effort, Simon propped himself up on his elbows, and as the blanket slipped, they saw the Breton’s handiwork: his ribs were tightly bandaged. “Where are we going?”

  “I think you can guess. Where are your clothes?”

  Simon pointed to a nearby coffer, and when Justin tossed his clothes onto the bed, he struggled to pull his shirt over his head, wincing but offering no protests. “You’re being very cooperative,” Justin said suspiciously, and he smiled tightly.

  “I hear that all the time.” By now he’d got his tunic on, although the exertion had obviously taken its toll. “I’ll need help with my boots,” he said, and Justin reached for them with a sigh, knowing Durand would let him walk barefoot back to Paris before lending a hand. Once Simon was on his feet, he looked from one to the other. “I do not suppose you’ll believe this, but I was planning to seek your lord out as soon as I was on the mend.”

  Justin did not care to hear John described as his “lord,” and he felt a sudden nostalgic pang for those bygone days when he could identify himself as “the queen’s man” and take pride in it. He knew nothing was likely to be so simple or straightforward once King Richard was free and back in England. For better or for worse, it would be a different world.

  Their arrival with Simon de Lusignan created a gratifying commotion, and Justin and Durand were both amused when Claudine strode over and slapped her abductor across the face. Justin was not so amused, though, when Simon gallantly kissed the hand that had struck him, vowing that he’d never have harmed one so beautiful. There was good news about Morgan; he’d awakened briefly and seemed lucid before falling asleep again. But John showed none of the jubilation they’d expected, tersely instructing them to join him abovestairs in the solar. Simon was exhausted after the ride back to the city. He knew better than to object, however, and did as he was bidden. The sangfroid he’d shown at the abbey infirmary was beginning to thaw and he was regarding John with the wariness of a small prey animal in the presence of a much larger predator.

  Emma accompanied them, taking it as her just due, and when John did not object, so did Claudine. Simon asked meekly if he could sit down. Hotheaded or not, he had clearly taken John’s measure. The queen’s son gestured abruptly toward a stool, but chose not to sit himself, pacing back and forth with such smoldering, restless energy that he unsettled them all.

  “I’ve seen corpses with better color,” John said, studying Simon with a noticeable lack of sympathy. “So de Quincy was right, then, and you had a close encounter with the Breton’s ever-handy dagger.”

  Simon blinked. “You know about the Breton?” His head swiveled toward Justin and Durand. “Ah... so you figured out what Roparzh meant. Clever, very clever,” he said softly, and they were not sure if he meant Arzhela’s stratagem or their deduction. Simon swallowed, glancing toward a nearby wine flagon, but no one took the hint. “My lord count, I am here for justice.”

  “Well, you’re a bold son of a bitch; I’ll give you that.”

  “Not for me, for the Lady Arzhela de Dinan. I tried to avenge her, but I failed. It is my hope that you can do better.”

  “I have no interest whatsoever in your hopes, de Lusignan. We know the Breton killed Lady Arzhela. What we do not know is how this pretty conspiracy of yours was hatched. Whose idea was it to hire the Breton?”

  “It was his. He sought me out the first Sunday in Advent, told me he knew of a way for us to make a large sum of money. I was to go to Raoul de Fougères and say that I’d learned that there was a canon in Toulouse with evidence that would be your ruination, and ask if he was interested in pursuing it. Naturally he was, and in time I produced ‘Canon Robert’ and his incendiary letter. The Bretons were only too happy to buy it.”

  John could hide neither his surprise nor his skepticism. “You’re saying they never knew they were dealing with the Breton? I would think his credentials would have been an asset, a means of validating the so-called proof.”

  “He was adamant from the first that his identity not be disclosed. I did not understand why myself,” Simon acknowledged, “but I was not about to question my good fortune. He’d not have needed me as a go-between if he’d not been so set upon staying in the shadows. He provided me with the letter and the finest set of forged seals a man could hope to see.” Forgetting, for the moment, the audience he was addressing, Simon sounded almost admiring of his partner’s artistry. “He was never one to stint on quality and I daresay many at the Breton court believed the letter was genuine.”

  “Forgive me if I do not share your enthusiasm for a forgery meant to be my ‘ruination,’ ” John said, and the tone of his voice raised the hairs on the back of Simon’s neck.

  “I know I’ve given you no reason to think kindly of me,” he said hastily, “but I was not motivated by malice. It was just for the money, no more than that.”

  His listeners could only marvel at the most inept, awkward apology they’d ever heard. “That makes me feel so much better,” John said caustically, “knowing it was never personal. If I go to the gallows for treason, at least I’ll have the consolation of knowing you bear me no ill will!”

  Simon swallowed again. “It was the Breton’s doing. I came along for the ride but the hand on the reins was his.”

  John walked over to Simon, standing so close that the younger man shifted uneasily on the stool. “Tell me about the Breton and Arzhela.”

  “I’d had too much to drink, and she got it out of me about the Breton. She was good at that. I warned her to keep quiet, which was a mistake. She had a hellcat’s temper.” Simon smiled ruefully, glancing up at John as if they were allies in the eternal male-female wars. “So we fought and I went off to brood about women and their vexing ways and, to be honest with you, to drown my troubles in a river of wine. When I sobered up, I rode back to Fougères, but Arzhela had already gone on to Mont St Michel. So we never got to make our peace, and the next time I saw her, she was laid out on a bier in St Étienne’s crypt...”

  His voice thickened and he bowed his head. Justin watched the performance with apprehension. He did not doubt Simon’s grieving for Arzhela was genuine, but neither did he doubt that the other man was quite capable of using that grief to his own advantage, just as he’d attempted to forge a sense of male camaraderie with John. H
e feared that Simon would try to retreat into the shadow world of loss whenever he was cornered, and he glanced over at John, hoping that he’d not allow it.

  He need not have worried. “I think you are forgetting something, Simon,” John said, the coolness of his voice belied by what they saw in his eyes. “When did you tell the Breton that you’d misspoken and Arzhela knew his true identity?”

  Simon expelled a long-held breath. “I did tell him,” he admitted, almost inaudibly, keeping his eyes fixed upon the floor rushes. “Arzhela could be as strong-willed as any man, as impulsive as a swallow on the wing. I thought I ought to warn him that there might be trouble brewing. But I never thought he’d harm her.” He looked up then, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I swear by all that’s holy that I did not!”

  “So why then,” Justin asked, “did you go racing off to the abbey as you did?”

  “I wanted to mend our quarrel. I did not suspect him, even after he disappeared from Fougères. He was always going off on mysterious errands of his own...” Simon’s shoulders twitched in a half-shrug that quickly brought a spasm of pain to his face. Placing a hand to his bandaged ribs, he said earnestly, “I did not suspect he had killing in mind, I did not!”

  “Of course you did not, lad,” Durand said, his voice dripping icicles and disbelief. “After all, this was the Breton, a man of known integrity and honor. Jesu forfend that he’d ever resort to murder!”

  Simon showed his temper was not truly tamed, then, by glaring at Durand. “Of course he’s killed men,” he snapped. “But not a woman, not one so highborn, so dear to me. I tell you it never occurred to me that he could be guilty, not until that day at the Genêts priory when you told me she’d whispered ‘Roparzh’ ere she died. Then I knew; too late, I knew what I’d done!”

  It was Emma who gave voice to the query in all their minds. “ ‘So dear to me,’ ” she echoed incredulously. “Why should the Breton give a flying fig for your passing fancies? For that matter, why should he have entrusted you with so much? Even if he needed a go-between, as you claim, why you?” She did not need to finish the rest of that disdainful thought; the tone of her voice said it all.